The-papacy-its-history-dogmas-genius-and-prospects-wylie

G21APOSTOLICITY, OR PETER's PRIMACY.tilings In Scripture never seen by the man who examines itsimply with the eyes of his understanding, do we fail to makeout this sense from the passage ? For the opinion of thefathers on the words of our Lord to Peter is directly opposedto the interpretation which the Church of Rome has putupon them ; and every priest swears at his ordination thathe " will not interpret the Scriptures but according to theunanimous consent of the fathers." Peter but a momentbefore had made his great confession, " Thou art the Christ,the Son of the living God.""*And, says Poole, in his examinationof the Church's infallibility, " the fathers generallyunderstood thisrock to be, not Peter's person, but his confession,or Christ as confessed by hira.Vide St Cyril, Hilary,Hierom, Ambrose, Basil, and Austin, who are proved byMoulins, in his discourse entitled The ' Novelty of Popery,'to have held this opinion .""-fOf the same sentiments wasChrysostom, Theodoret, Origen, and others. Here, then, wehave the priests of Rome taking a solemn oath at their ordinationthat they willthe unanimous consent of thenot interpret Scripture except withfathers, and yet interpretingthis passage in a sense directly contrary to the concurrentopinion of the fathers.What, then, are we to understand by the " rocF'' on whichChrist declared that he would build his Church ? Whetherare we to understand Peter, who afterwards thrice deniedhira, or the great truth which Peter had just confessed, eventhe eternal deity of Christ ? The fathers, we have seen, interpreted" this rock*" of Christ himself, or of the confessionof his deity by Peter ;:[ and so will every man, we venture toaffirm, who is competent to form an opinion, and has no ob-* Matt. xvi. 16.+ A Blow at the Root of the Romish Church, chap. ii. prop. ii.J Tiirrettine, in his treatise "De Necessaria Secessione nostra ab EcclesiaRomana," and Barrow, in his great work " On the Supremacy of thePope," have given copious citations from the fathers, showing their perfectagi-eement on tlie point, that the " rock" referred to the truth Peterhad just confessed, or to Christ himself.